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Dropbox Kept Files Around For Years Due To 'Delete' Bug (bleepingcomputer.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the empty-trash dept.

Dropbox has fixed a bug that caused old, deleted data to reappear on the site. The bug was reported by multiple support threads in the last three weeks and merged into one issue here. An anonymous Slashdot reader writes: In some of the complaints users reported seeing folders they deleted in 2009 reappear on their devices overnight. After seeing mysterious folders appear in their profile, some users thought they were hacked. Last week, a Dropbox employee provided an explanation to what happened, blaming the issue on an old bug that affected the metadata of soon-to-be-deleted folders. Instead of deleting the files, as users wanted and regardless of metadata issues, Dropbox choose to keep those files around for years, and eventually restored them due to a blunder. In its File retention Policy, Dropbox says it will keep files around a maximum 60 days after users deleted them.

6 of 73 comments (clear)

  1. Correct title by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Dropbox Kept Files Around For Years Due To Delete 'Bug'

    FTFY

    1. Re:Correct title by elrous0 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I wonder if other cloud service providers have such 'bugs'.

      Only the ones on their knees sucking NSA and FBI dick. In other words, pretty much all of them.

      But kudos to Dropbox for their incompetent slip that confirmed everything we'd feared about such file sharing services archiving and sharing data with the government.

      I wonder if they're doing this for the Chinese government too. I suspect the answer is a resounding "yes."

      --
      SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
    2. Re:Correct title by Immerman · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Was it 8 years worth of data, or just data from 8 years ago? Big difference, and the summary at least indicates the latter.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
  2. Yeah sure. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They didn't notice terabytes of data just piling up over 8 years. Mkay.

  3. FTFY by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Instead of deleting the files, as users wanted and regardless of metadata issues, Dropbox choose to secretly keep those files around for years, but accidentally made this visible to the user when they restored them due to a blunder.

  4. Re:Alternative Facts by antdude · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I always assume the hosts have copies even if you nuke them. :(

    --
    Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).